Netgear has long been my tool of choice when it comes to hooking up my home internet. They know what it takes to give you wide open access to the web and make it easy. This makes them a prime choice for a company to make a Google TV Box. You can catch Netgear unveiling their brand new addition to the NeoTV box series of devices at today’s CES show in Las Vegas. The NeoTV Prime Video Box is their high-end product, built with Google TV baked in so you can access tons of great content; it’s also their answer to other such devices that bring similar content like Apple TV and the Roku.
Just like many other devices out there, the NeoTV Prime Video box with GoogleTV can give you an open door to tons of video content like video libraries and streaming services such as Netflix, HBOgo, Flixster, Amazon Instant, and others. You can also get jacked in to your favorite tunes from Rhapsody and Pandora. If that wasn’t enough it’s got the holy grail of features, the Google TV service, giving you plenty of access to all the things you could want from the Play Store. If you thought you had enough ways to grab up the newest episode of Breaking Bad, or play one more round of Angry Birds Star Wars, well.. you’d be wrong. With access to Google’s Play Store on the NeoTV Prime Video box you can throw on an HD movie from thousands of choices or sit down for a refresher and play catch up on your favorite shows. Maybe you just want to experience the wow factor of android apps on the BIG screen. NeoTV Prime will give you that too. Music is of course included in all this. And the best part is every bit of it is specifically designed for the tv making it a much more enjoyable experience.
With all this packed in it seems like a pretty damn good device. Third generation Google TV software makes the video box new and refreshed, and Google’s own Chrome web browser will let you surf the web from your TV in the simplistic but feature rich and gorgeous way you love without having to hop on your laptop or run and grab your tablet. If streaming videos and music wasn’t enough, not to worry. NeoTV Prime will let you grab any type of media you wish from any connected external hard drives or storage device. Hop on the Google play store and pick an app called aVia media player and you can even grab any music, videos, movies, or photos from any of your android devices as well. Now that’s pretty damn cool.
If you were wondering just how you might control such a device in your own home, (no you won’t link up to it via android powered brain chips, but… that might be cool, right?)The NeoTV Prime box will come with a remote that comes fully equipped with a full QWERTY keyboard and touch-pad for browsing and typing. Want one yet? Good, cause they’re available now in the U.S. for $130. That’s a pretty low-cost for something that is this powerful and does so many things. You can bet I’ll be grabbing one for the bedroom. Who’s excited for this announcement? Anyone currently using other similar products like the Roku box, Apple TV or others? Would you make the switch with this new version of Google TV built-in?